Worthy
by Eight More Seconds
Summary: Raito goes to L's grave on a drizzling day, and thinking back, muses on how worthy an opponent and a rival the world's greatest detective was in the deadly cat and mouse game they played... [Implied LxRaito]


Sorry, I'm supposed to be on hiatus here and I'm (sneakily) using the computer while pretending to do my English project…

This is something I whipped up on impulse during one of my Math classes a few days ago, and I just _had _to write it down. And yes, I can write both het and shounen-ai/yaoi pairings. I'm just less apt when it comes to shounen-ai/yaoi.

Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note or any related materials.Except for my copy of the entire Death Note manga in Chinese.

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_**Worthy**_

"I'm here, Ryuuzaki," said Raito, arriving at L's grave, a hood covering him, shielding the amber-haired teen from the very faint drizzle._Just like when I finished off that irksome Raye Penbar, except that was on the train, _he thought to himself, somewhat satisfied. He knelt down and fingered the words that were carved into the marble gravestone, so cool and dark and composed. _Justice will always prevail._ Raito smiled at the choice of words for the epitaph._Typical L._

"So I won in the end," mused Raito softly. "Didn't I, Ryuuzaki?" There was no response, but Raito wasn't expecting any. After all, the greatest obstacle blocking his vision, his dream to be _the_ god of a new world, a world cleansed off all evil and sins – _his _utopia, was truly dead. Gone. Kicked the bucket. Counting worms. Pushing up the daisies. Whichever way he looked at it, L – or Ryuuzaki – had moved on. The only threat L posed now was only to watch Raito craft and create a perfect world, whether from heaven or hell.

Thinking back to the night his greatest rival of all time died, he found it odd, queer even, when his sense of triumph was so quickly quashed by such a strong onslaught of grief and anguish, perhaps laced with longing desire. _So my grief was genuine after all. That was easy. No acting needed._ Desire? Now where did that come from? Perhaps it was a longing to – _alright, backtrack, _Raito scolded himself. Because Raito Yagami, the god of the new world, was most assuredly, absolutely and definitely _not _gay.

_Or maybe you are,_ a voice in Raito's head said, somewhat snidely.

_Shut up, voice._ The voice was dispelled in an instant, and Raito resumed musing in silence. It had been a tense cat-and-mouse chase from the start to finish, and yet in the end, it was Raito who had emerged from the entire game victorious and unscathed. And L, his rival? He had lost, and the loss cost him his life.

"I'm justice, Ryuuzaki," said Raito. "I'm sorry you didn't see it my way. If you did, we'd have such a future together." He stood up and turned to leave, but looked back.

"You were a worthy opponent."

Raito left the cemetery slowly, each step quiet, the crunching of gravel barely audible. There was a strange, hollow feeling within him, previously absent in him. Even for the prodigy, he didn't know why that'd be. He shrugged it off, and walked away, and eventually returned to the apartment he and Misa shared.

Ironically, when Raito died, the last thing he saw was Ryuuzaki standing over him, the same way he had done so on the night L died As he closed his eyes, he heard L's voice whisper:

"Goodbye Kira." Raito was sure L had said something else, something which involved his real name – and not Kira. Yet he'd never know or hear it, for he was killed by the same tool he had used to kill countless others before. When he woke up, he was lying on a soft white object and found himself lying next to his worthiest and greatest opponent ever, L, with a smile on _his _face.

Raito was wrong. L _had_ come back to haunt and challenge Raito in the form of his two successors, Mello and Near, of which one of them deduced Raito was the infamous Kira, and eventually led to Raito's death and demise, and marked the end of Raito's life on earth and his career as Kira.

Then again, they both were worthy opponents for each other.

Or maybe, something more.

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A bittersweet piece, as my friend puts it. She scrawled something involving Raito and L together, but I erased that because this is a T rated fiction, and not one rating higher. 

Reviews are, as always, greatly appreciated, and I hope you liked my little piece of writing here.


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